There will be broadcast legislation and there will be sanctions on broadcasters President Bharrat Jagdeo said without giving an indication as to when broadcast legislation and a broadcasting authority would be set up.
Asked at a press conference if it wasn’t the government’s responsibility to ensure there was adequate legislation to regulate television broadcasting given the current largely unregulated sector the President said it was the government’s responsibility and that the country would have broadcast legislation. However, he continued, “What we have here is not just an issue of law.”
Jagdeo ordered the closure of CNS – Channel 6 over a week ago because of rebroadcasts of an inflammatory statement on the ‘Voice of the People’ programme, a closure which produced strong reactions both positive and negative.
Some people, said the President, claimed that “we are too tolerant and that is why we have this abuse of the airwaves. In fact, they have been saying it needs to be strongly regulated. I agree with that, that we need tougher penalties.
“Could you imagine… in another country it would be inconceivable for this to even take place,” he said, referring to the public outcry over an offensive section in a movie in which the life of a president had been threatened and which then had had to be removed.
He commented, however, that in the Guyana situation, “I am afraid that any regulation, any law put in place… if… used and used properly against offenders, depending on which side of the fence you sit, there would still be non-acceptance.”
He gave the example of Channel Four which had breached its licence and had been taken off the air. He said he had not seen the politicians and the Guyana Press Association (GPA) arguing about freedom of the press in this instance. “They did not argue for freedom of the press, or that the punishment was too severe or affected the lives of the people… because Channel Four was not seen as hostile to the government. It is not just about laws,” he reiterated.
He noted that the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting (ACB) had been set up as a joint action on the part of himself and the late leader of the PNCR Desmond Hoyte, and shortly afterwards the committee had recommended sanctions against HBTV – Channel 9. Immediately, he said, the PNCR had claimed that the ACB didn’t have “standing.”
He said the party had “repudiated the body that was set up.
It is how we apply things. It is this partisan behaviour where we can’t see things. But we are so clouded that everything must be political for the advantage of one party or the other…
“Yes, you will have the broadcast legislation. Yes, you will have sanctions. Yes, you will have people selectively deciding on these issues. That is the nature of the polity of this country,” he said.
Asked when there would be legislation, Jagdeo responded, “When it is applied.”
The issue of broadcast legislation has been a subject of debate for decades with the GPA being among those clamouring for consensus on a draft that would be acceptable to all.
GPA President Dennis Chabrol told Stabroek News on Saturday that the draft, which had been circulated some years ago, had been seen as too restrictive ultimately placing too much power in the hands of the minister of information. By placing restrictions on what could be published and what could not be published, it “introduces a new editor into the newsroom,” he said.
In a letter to the editor, published in the April 19 edition of the Stabroek News, Kit Nascimento noting the absence of broadcast legislation, particularly in the context of the closure of Channel 6, said that where there were adequate broadcasting regulations, a potential licencee would first have to justify at public hearings held by the regulatory authority, his or her qualifications to be granted the right to a broadcast licence.
“In Guyana licensed broadcasters were, unfortunately, given licences without hearings, without having to establish their qualifications for a licence, without any public justification for being granted the privilege. Our broadcasters were granted licences simply because they either first squatted illegally on the frequency, or the government was persuaded to grant them the licence,” he wrote.
Nascimento further noted that Guyana remained the “only major country in the Caribbean without modern broadcasting law instituting a politically independent broadcasting authority to administer and regulate broadcast licences.”
He observed, too, that Guyana had had draft broadcast legislation in one form or another since 1969, but the political will to legislate in this direction had remained absent.
On March 2, 2008, the AFC in its recommendations to the national stakeholders’ meeting on security recommended among other things that parliament debate and approve the passage of broadcast legislation within a timeframe of 180 days as well as pass a freedom of information bill within the same period. These recommendations were not among the priority issues agreed to at the March 2 meeting.
Following the 2006 general and regional elections, the Electoral Advisory Bureau (EAB) noted that for the most part during the elections the media had acted responsibly, but said there was a need to build on this development and recommended that urgent steps be taken to get broad national consensus on the draft broadcast legislation and then enact it without delay.
The PNCR under the leadership of Desmond Hoyte in 2001 had agreed to the need to regulate the broadcast media and pending the passage of broadcast legislation and the setting up of a broadcast authority had assented in the interim to the establishment of the ACB.
Jagdeo and Hoyte signed the memorandum of understanding to establish the ACB on November 7, 2001. It was set up with the objective that broadcast legislation would be enacted within a specific timeframe, and to this end, a joint committee on radio monopoly, non-partisan boards and broadcasting legislation was established.
The joint committee, which presented its report and recommendations to Jagdeo and Hoyte on December 6, 2001, proposed that the broadcasting system be administered by “an independent and autonomous authority empowered by the relevant legislation to issue public, commercial and community radio and television licences, enforce regulations, monitor compliance and increase public awareness, among other functions.”
Then press liaison to the President, Robert Persaud, in a weekly viewpoint in 2005 said that broadcast legislation had been stalled because the PNCR had “torpedoed the mechanism to resolve differences over the draft.
There is clear evidence that the administration was moving swiftly to have this bill presented in the National Assembly.”
He said that the joint committee report had laid out the general parameters for the drafting of the legislation and the Attorney General’s Chambers drafting section had used those parameters and studied legislation from other countries in preparing a draft.
This draft was published in the daily newspapers and members of the public and other stakeholders were invited to submit suggestions. None was ever received.
The PNCR claimed that the draft deviated from the joint committee’s report on the general parameters and the President, in seeking to find a consensus, agreed to a government-opposition team discussing the legislation to reconcile differences. There were three meetings, after which the main opposition did not reply to the final set of comments by the government side.
All this occurred before 2005, and in 2006, the PNCR accused the government of continuing to shirk its responsibility for implementing the measures agreed to when it accepted the joint committee on broadcasting report in 2001, by using ploys such as consultations with the media and the private sector to delay the laying of broadcast legislation in parliament. (Miranda La Rose)
